Romeo V. Tabuena

We pay the highest possible prices for works by Romeo V. Tabuena

ROMEO V. TABUENA

TABUENA, ROMEO V. b. Iloilo city 22 Aug 1921. Painter. Tabuena studied fine arts at the University of the

Philippines (UP). He also studied at the Art Student League in New York, USA, in 1952 and at the Academie

de la Grande Chaumiere in France in 1954.

One of the neorealist, he began his career with several exhibits of drawings and watercolors at the Philippine

Art Gallery in 1949. He is best known for his Watercolors, at times in a vertical format influenced by Chinese

Painting. These near-monochromatic watercolor landscapes of nipa huts, farmers, and carabaos are done in an

exquisite style, with attenuated figures spread out in large tonal areas suggesting early morning fog.

Tabuena had another side to his art, and this was expressed in dark oil paintings, some of which seemed to

reflect the "proletarian" concerns of the period, as in Coal Gatherers. Here the figures are short, and and squat,

with expressionist distortion and no bright colors to relieve the heavy atmosphere. He approaches

expressionism, especially in such a work as Childbirth, in which the pangs of childbirth are expressed in

elongated figures and dramatic lighting which hints of fears of mythological beings. A later series consists of

heads done in a monochromatic style with cubist influence, their jagged, angular features suggesting years of

toil and arduous struggle.

When Tabuena settled in Mexico, he developed a colorful, prismatic style with folk subjects, including street

sweepers, candle vendors, guards, and laundry women.

Tabuena won awards from the Art Association of the Philippines: second prize, Agnus Dei (Lamb of God),

1949, and honorable mention, Black Christ, 1952.

We pay the highest possible prices for works by Romeo V. Tabuena